RRND Email Full Text (Scheduled)


  • America Is in Trouble and Running Out of Time

    Source: Townhall
    by Les Rubin

    “The numbers are mathematical, not political. Unless the United States begins restoring fiscal discipline, future generations will inherit a nation burdened by debt, weakened by chronic overspending, and headed to a bankruptcy that could be prevented. Washington is run by professional politicians, not statesmen, whose focus is on the next election, not the next generation. They have operated under a simple formula. Promise more benefits, avoid difficult decisions, and borrow the difference.” (07/17/26)

    https://townhall.com/columnists/les-rubin/2026/07/17/america-is-in-trouble-and-running-out-of-time-n2679507

  • Can the government require ID before you use artificial intelligence?

    Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
    by John Coleman

    “The internet is one of the main places where we read, learn, ask questions, and share ideas. It serves as a library, bookstore, classroom, and town square all at once. For decades, most people have been able to use those online spaces without first proving who they are. That may be changing. Legislatures across the United States are passing laws requiring online platforms and other digital services to determine users’ ages before granting access. … At first glance, these laws seem to ask a simple question: How old are you? But answering it isn’t so simple. Is checking a box enough? Can a company estimate your age from a selfie? Should it rely on information from your device or app store? Or must you verify your age by uploading a government-issued ID? What begins as age assurance can result in identity verification.” (07/17/26)

    https://www.fire.org/news/can-government-require-id-you-use-artificial-intelligence

  • The Case for a Managed US Exit from NATO

    Source: Independent Institute
    by Ivan Eland

    “[I]f Europeans spend more on defense, it doesn’t necessarily mean the United States will cut back its mammoth defense budget. Instead, Trump has outrageously proposed ballooning it by more than 50 percent. In light of this reality, his browbeating of allies on defense spending may seem to relieve allies’ snookering of the United States, but it doesn’t help the United States address its gaping budget deficits and spiraling national debt. A better alternative would be for Trump to announce a gradual U.S. withdrawal from NATO over a two-year period. The European Union now has a GDP about 8.5 times that of its principal rival—a Russia that has been severely weakened by the bloody, drawn-out quagmire against the surprisingly resilient Ukraine. There has never been a better time to pull the plug on a Cold-War-era alliance.” (07/17/26)

    https://www.independent.org/article/2026/07/17/trump-withdraw-nato/

  • Immigrants Build America’s Most Valuable Companies

    Source: The Daily Economy
    by Logan Tantibanchachai

    “Visa holders founded half of today’s Fortune 500 companies and a majority of billion-dollar startups. Current restrictions damage that competitive advantage and choke off future growth.” (07/17/26)

    https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/immigrants-build-americas-most-valuable-companies/

  • America’s Imperial Wars, from Korea to Iran

    Source: Informed Comment
    by Tom Engelhardt

    “[G]ive Donald Trump credit. People deal with him as if he were a unique figure in American history and in some ways, of course, he couldn’t be more so. But not, it turns out, when it comes to American-style war. There, he seems almost boringly part of a story (now more than three-quarters of a century old) of how the seemingly greatest power on Planet Earth in the endless decades after World War II simply couldn’t — no, not ever! — win a war.” (07/17/26)

    https://www.juancole.com/2026/07/americas-imperial-korea.html

  • Emily Feng’s Seditious Material and the new West’s love of censorship

    Source: Libertarian Institute
    by Kym Robinson

    “Hong Kong police have recently arrested book sellers for having copies of Emily Feng’s, Let Only Red Flowers Bloom. Freelance journalists and three others have been arrested related to the book and for the act of selling, ‘seditious material.’ … ‘Seditious Material,’ is the title that sounds less than harmful for many Westerners who may view China as a land known of having less freedoms, where independent thinking and writing, are prohibited or heavily guided. … time and time again we are told that Western values celebrates individual rights. Self ownership, which includes free speech. Transfer those two words, Seditious and Material and press it into those which may suddenly draw an ire of concern for a newly conditioned Western reader, one who may feel freedom of speech has conditions.” (07/17/26)

    https://libertarianinstitute.org/blog/emily-fengs-seditious-material-and-the-new-wests-love-of-censorship/

  • A Brief History of Trump’s Failures to Bring Peace

    Source: The Dispatch
    by Kevin D Williamson

    “Campaigning for the White House in 2024, retired game show host Donald Trump insisted that he would end the Russia-Ukraine war on his first day in office—maybe before. He repeated that boast more than 50 times—it clearly was not a one-off remark. The war rages on, of course, and we have a pretty good idea of who is going to put a stop to that war: the Ukrainians. How are the great peacemaker’s other projects going?” (07/17/26)

    https://thedispatch.com/article/donald-trump-international-peacemaker/

  • Cicero’s Life in the Arena

    Source: Law & Liberty
    by Tyler Syck

    “With the exception of the Caesars, no ancient Roman political figure is as famous as Marcus Tullius Cicero. Like the Caesars, the myth of Cicero has taken on a life of its own: the philosopher-statesman who, until his final breath, withstood the forces of totalitarianism in defense of the republic. Certainly, there is a great deal of truth to this story. Cicero’s literary output is prodigious, and his defense of the Roman republic against Caesarism should remain an example to us all. However, as with most myths, the truth of the man is far richer and far more complicated.” (07/17/26)

    https://lawliberty.org/ciceros-life-in-the-arena/

  • The New American Industrial Revolution Runs on Data Centers

    Source: American Greatness
    by Jordan Schachtel

    “merican technological infrastructure is the building block for our modern lives. Data centers are not some side issue or a fringe zoning dispute; they account for a significant part of the physical foundation of the American economy. They are the functional infrastructure that can put the United States in a position to reindustrialize and onshore our economy, while allowing us to have the tools we need to compete with China. The loudest forces working to stop that buildout fall into exactly two categories: people who are simply misinformed about what these facilities actually do, and people who are being actively used, wittingly or not, to psyop American communities into fighting against their own country’s interests.” (07/17/26)

    https://amgreatness.com/2026/07/17/the-new-american-industrial-revolution-runs-on-data-centers/

  • How California’s Plastic Ban Could Change What Every American Buys

    Source: Foundation for Economic Education
    by Kerry Jackson

    “The Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act, passed and signed in 2022, went into effect on May 1. It demands a lot. By 2032, every shred of single-use packaging and single-use plastic food service ware sold in the state has to be recyclable or compostable. The law covers not just items made and consumed in California, but also those imported from outside the state. Because California is a massive market, many companies don’t produce one package for California and another for the other 49 states. Instead, they use a single design for everyone. That’s why the 17 states and other critics argue that California’s regulations have increasingly become national regulations.” (07/17/26)

    https://fee.org/articles/how-californias-plastic-ban-could-change-what-every-american-buys/

  • Mykhailo Fedorov Ukraine Ukraine’s defense minister walked into Zelensky corruption buzzsaw

    Source: Responsible Statecraft
    by Mark Episkopos

    “Mykhailo Fedorov advanced a successful drone program in part by bucking the patronage system, which, protected by the president, likely led to his sacking.” (07/17/26)

    https://responsiblestatecraft.org/mykhailo-fedorov-ukraine-zelensky/

  • Auberon Herbert and the “Social Entity”

    Source: Free Association
    by Sheldon Richman

    “In his magazine debate over socialism, the late-Victorian individualist Auberon Herbert saw in the presentation of his opponent, J. A. Hobson, ‘an attempt to reduce the individual to nothingness, and on the ruins of the individual to exalt and glorify ‘the social organism.’ … Herbert asked: ‘[Is] there any solid reality in this view of the social entity, or must we treat it as a mere literary creation?’ He opted for the latter because, in fact, it is individuals all the way down.'” (07/17/26)

    https://sheldonrichman.substack.com/p/tgif-auberon-herbert-and-the-social

  • America’s Imperial Wars, from Korea to Iran

    Source: Informed Comment
    by Tom Engelhardt

    “People deal with [Donald Trump] as if he were a unique figure in American history and in some ways, of course, he couldn’t be more so. But not, it turns out, when it comes to American-style war. There, he seems almost boringly part of a story (now more than three-quarters of a century old) of how the seemingly greatest power on Planet Earth in the endless decades after World War II simply couldn’t — no, not ever! — win a war.” (07/17/26)

    https://www.juancole.com/2026/07/americas-imperial-korea.html

  • Politicians Should Stop Hiding Behind the ‘Two-State Solution’ Fantasy

    Source: Antiwar.com
    by Norman Solomon

    “Creation of a Palestinian state next to Israel seemed feasible when President Bill Clinton hosted the signing of the Oslo accords at the White House in September 1993. The goal was reaffirmed in 2011 when 90 percent of the Senate co-sponsored a resolution supporting ‘a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.’ But today, the two-state scenario is far-fetched to the point of delusion if not evasion. For politicians, it has become a box to check. According to data from the American Jewish Congress, every Democrat and most Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee currently say they support ‘the two-state solution.’ Whatever the rhetoric, ending Israeli control over Palestinians in the territories occupied since 1967 is not on the table.” (07/17/26)

    https://original.antiwar.com/solomon/2026/07/16/politicians-should-stop-hiding-behind-the-two-state-solution-fantasy/